Good Things Come
by AngelOfDeath10
Summary: AU, Enishi/Kaoru, oneshot; In which the Jinchuu Arc replays itself in every universe, but in this one it looks a lot a bit like common problems. What starts with manipulation could always end with compassion, and maybe something more if you look out of the corner of your eye.


Several open projects, but this struck me after seeing Star Wars (Cassian and Jyn siiiiiiiggggghhhh). Absolutely no connection between what this is and a space opera, so don't ask me why my mind works thusly.

I know it's weird. I'm out of practice, but I needed to get something out there in my ongoing battle against the mind weasels.

Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. Oops. I figured you would figure that out.

* * *

Kaoru slipped out of the gymnasium complex, sweat shining on her skin in the golden fluorescent street lamps that lit the parking lot. She didn't look back as the door slammed shut with a metallic clang, but was forced to look back when she noticed some of the purple chiffon that made up her dress was caught in it.

"Shit…" She was already feeling the chill as her sweat combined with the night air to cool her down far too fast. A little bit of that lost warmth was recaptured as she struggled to extract herself from the door while valiantly trying to save her dress hem. With a loud tear, and a few more indelicate curse words that sounded foreign in her mouth, she was free. Kaoru stumbled to regain her footing in the heels that Megumi had insisted on lending her. They were a little too big, but the older girl had assured her she'd be taking them off to dance anyway so why worry about details.

Goosebumps, regret, and the desire to rush around to the front of the building and find her friends again were Kaoru's dominant feelings but every time retreat occurred to her the vision of Kenshin and Tomoe slow dancing with mirrored expressions of devotion made her spine straighten just a little. They had been lost in one another. No Kamiyas existed in that particular world, nor did it seem there would be room for one anytime soon.

She had to go back eventually, she knew that much. For one thing her fanciful evening jacket was inside in the makeshift coat check some member of the PTA was running and in said jacket were her house keys, her phone, and her debit card. Supposing that she instead dug out the spare key hidden in the fake rock in the ferns next to the house, she would still have to navigate to home somehow despite it being too far to walk and having no cash for a bus. Buses that ran this late might have strange characters in them, and Kaoru had never been good at the hand to hand nonsense that Sano insisted he could teach her. Jumping out of nowhere to pick her up with long arms around her waist while she struggled and their friends laughed most certainly didn't count as a lesson.

Kaoru shivered, telling herself moving around a bit would lead to warmth, as she looked out at the sea of cars that the juniors and seniors had arrived in to attend the dance. She recognized a lot of them, her high school being smaller than she would have liked it but large enough that a full half of the cars seemed strange to her. There was the two door she had arrived in with Sano and Megumi, where Sano had been folded into the back of it like an accordion with his long legs in a rented suit bumping the girls' seats. Megumi had told him if he complained too much he'd ride home in the trunk.

Misao's smart car leapt out at Kaoru for no other reason than somehow the tiny purple and black thing was taking up space so haphazardly no one else could park next to her. Despite herself, Kaoru found she was scanning as she often did for Kenshin's practical, ancient, Subaru. It was older than he was and a forest green that seemed unremarkable at first glance, rather like Kenshin, but that car was reliable and had seen a lot of hard miles. And right now it had a smoking man sitting on it…

Kaoru bristled, marching with her unsteady heeled gait towards the ruffian. Behind her, within shouting distance, were milling teens past the chain link fence that bordered the parking lot. She might not have been so brave without knowing someone would hear her if she screamed.

"Excuse me," Kaoru cleared her throat, and the reprobate sitting on Kenshin's hood continued to stare at the clouds above them as they moved across the moon and stars. He could just as easily have been staring at the cigarette smoke winding its way into the sky. Either way, he wasn't paying any attention to Kaoru or her wobbling indignation.

"Excuse me!" She tried louder. When he continued to ignore her she wrapped her knuckles against the metal near his booted feet. "Hey you! This isn't your car."

He sat up slowly, languidly, rather like a cat considering if it wanted to acknowledge the person talking to it or shred the carpet. Why shred the carpet? Because fuck you, that's why. If anyone could express their utter disdain with nothing more than bland eye contact, this man could. In the fluorescent orange light, his eyes were pale and piercing with no color to speak of behind round glasses with thin frames.

"I know." His voice was deep, but he looked young. Maybe.

"This car belongs to my," What was he to her? She always struggled with this one. " _Friend_ Kenshin. I don't think he would appreciate you denting it."

Unfolding long legs from the crossed position they had been in, she saw that while he had on an unbuttoned dark shirt with an equally dark tank top underneath, his pants had a distinctively pressed pleat down the center and a stripe on the side. It screamed military to Kaoru, but given that it looked like no uniform she'd ever seen, maybe military _school_. The crewcut he was sporting with that pale hair completed the assumption.

They stared at one another in silence, and Kaoru found herself taking a fighting stance with her feet even if she had no saber in her hand. Her shoulders straightened unconsciously as she did so, and she saw the man (boy?) raise his eyebrows at her.

"Get lost, this doesn't concern you." He finally spoke to her again, waving her away with one hand before pulling the stub of a cigarette from his mouth, smashing it against the hood, and lastly flicking it to smolder under the car next to them.

Kaoru, already on high emotional alert for other reasons, combusted. "I don't know who you think you are, but you obviously aren't here for any good reason and I think it's about time I marched over there and got a teacher! You don't go to this school."

Quicker than she thought a human could move he was off the hood and between her and the parking lot exit. He was easily a head taller than her, but Kaoru was in Megumi's heels and therefore much closer to his eye level than she normally would have been. Her heart shot into her throat, but she would be damned before she let him see how rattled she felt at this show of intimidation.

"Let me by." Kaoru took a step to the left and the man mirrored her, expressionless. Huffing frustration, she moved to the right and he still blocked her path. This was the closest thing she had done to dancing with a boy all night, ironically.

"I'm not entirely sure you won't run off and do something inconvenient right now."

Inconvenient. Kaoru was certainly inconvenient a lot these days. She was the one with a single dad who worked all the time, and yet she could barely help even cook meals every other day. She was the one who had sworn up and down she wouldn't go to a dance this year before pleading for her friends to help her at the last minute. She was the one getting the reputation for being 'too good' to date because in her heart she was pining for someone impossible. All Kaoru's self-directed rage collapsed inward before exploding outwards.

With a strangled cry she tried to shove the stranger with both hands to knock him off balance and give her room to get past, but all she encountered were solid pectorals and his raised eyebrows.

"You're in my way!" Considering screaming, instead she tried to kick at his shin. Not taking his eyes off of her, he neatly dodged before advancing a step.

Kaoru's first reflex was to push him back again, but this time he swept her hand out of the way and spun her in a circle. Falling into her training, she faced him and tried to cut and lunge as if the saber were in her hand, but it just seemed a ridiculous sort of flailing from the boy's point of view no doubt. What's worse was that with every retreat, made extra awkward by her heeled shoes, he would move forward just close enough that she felt the need to swipe her arm at him again.

It was mortifying when her blind rage was spent, and she found herself just about backed up against a white BMW SUV with the boy looking down at her curiously over the rim of his glasses. He wasn't angry, it seemed, and at no point had it ever seemed like she was a threat to him. It would be awkward to call someone over now as well because had anyone seen them it would have looked like she was attacking _him_. Attacking strangers on school grounds sounded like a hard detention to explain to her dad, but maybe he'd actually show up to the inevitable counselor meeting. He hadn't shown up to any previously when it actually mattered.

Lungs heaving, Kaoru allowed her wounded pride a moment of silence. R.I.P. self worth.

"That was interesting." He cocked his head to one side and stared down at her. "I've never seen someone fight like that before."

"If I had my saber…" Kaoru felt the hot blush of embarrassment rush to her cheeks. Her father, before he got too busy to teach her, had always told her excuses were wasted breath. "This doesn't change anything. You still don't belong here."

Unwilling to hold eye contact her eyes floated down to his chest where his uniform shirt unwrinkled to show a hard name badge that read 'YUKISHIRO'. In shock, Kaoru's eyes darted back up to search his face for a likeness to the poised school princess. Maybe their first true familial likeness was the ability to use prolonged silence as a weapon.

"Does your sister know you're here?" Kaoru hazarded a guess. Where he had seemed curiously dismissive before, even indulgent, suddenly she had the boy's full attention and it burned like the summer sun. Menace poured off of him, and Kaoru opened her mouth to actually scream, but found a calloused hand covering it and muffling the attempt.

He was so close she could smell his aftershave mixed with cigarette smoke. How could anyone's eyes be that shade of blue without the use of contacts? The boy took a ragged breath in and then out, and Kaoru wondered what gears were turning inside that mind of his as he broke their intense eye contact to stare upwards and continue to count breaths. With a sudden burst of gallows humor she realized that if anyone had seen her it would look like she had gone from dancing with this stranger to making out against a parked car. He must have felt her smile against his hand because he suddenly turned back to her.

"I can't have you go back in and make this something it doesn't need to be. This is between me and Himura. But you aren't going to leave this alone, are you…" The last sentence wasn't addressed to her, and as he stared into nothing he finally allowed him palm to drop from her face. She hoped he had lipstick all over his hand.

"What's your problem, anyway, crashing a school prom like you're going to challenge Kenshin to a duel or something stupid—" His stony expression revealed the truth to her. "You came here to challenge him to a duel."

"What an antiquated expression."

Kaoru, still boxed in by his body, felt her mind scramble from one ludicrous idea to another. She couldn't wrestle him down to the ground and choke him out (like Sano), and she wasn't good at twisting logic into knots until people agreed with her (like Megumi), and she didn't have that easy way understanding what people wanted to hear (like Kenshin). Throw yourself into it, like a lunge, Kamiya…

"I'm hungry."

That seemed to derail everything as the boy stood up a little and dropped his domineering posture. Kaoru tried to relax her body against the cold metal of the car. If a full out physical assault didn't sway him, maybe she could kill him with kindness.

"I'm hungry. I could hardly eat before this and it seems like all anybody brought with them was breath mints and energy drinks. There's a diner down the street. I promise I won't make any scene at all if you buy me some fries and sit with me a moment. You can leave me there afterwards, and then you'll know for sure I can't ruin your… fight."

He appeared to be considering it, probably because he didn't have any better ideas short of kidnapping her. "How do I know you won't call someone?"

"First of all, do I look like I have a phone on me?" Those tropical blue eyes of his darted down to her strapless sweetheart neckline for only a fraction of a second, but his huff of amusement was unmistakable when he realized she was referring to being unable to hold anything among her modest assets. "Second of all, even if I found a phone… no one has anything other than their own phone number memorized these days."

It was mostly true. Frantically, in her own head she was trying to remember the conversation last year at lunch when they had tried to find the silliest phrases their own phone numbers could spell. She remembered laughing at Misao's until the bell rang, but _what had it been_?!

"And after all this you'll just get in a car quietly with me and trust that I'll drive you to this diner?"

"Are you implying that you might not? Maybe I like thinking people have integrity."

Giving her a weird look, the boy put a hand into his pocket and pulled out a key and fob. With a press of a button the SUV Kaoru leaned against beeped as he disarmed the alarm. "I'm implying that you should think a little more strategically in the future."

As soon as she had strapped herself in the passenger seat Kaoru had felt a thrill, like she was doing something very daring, very selfless, and very idiotic all at the same time. Like volunteering to clean out a tiger's cage while the tiger still prowled in it. Once Yukishiro turned the power on, she immediately rolled down the tinted window on her side, just to give herself the opportunity to shout out of it as needed.

They idled a moment.

"I don't know where we're going." The boy deadpanned.

"Oh right." Kaoru felt flustered, having not expected this to work so well. "Take that exit over there and then go left. It's a couple minutes down the road."

As the school got further away and Kaoru's sense of doubt grew exponentially, she reminded herself to stick to the plan.

"I'm Kaoru Kamiya, by the way. I've only spoken with your sister a few times but she seemed super polite."

He didn't respond. They drove at exactly the speed limit before pausing at the stop sign at the end of the school drive and turning left. Other than the possible sister complex nonsense that could cause a brother to challenge his sister's boyfriend to a fight, what possible motivation could there be here? And how could she get him to talk about it, or anything really. Stalling wasn't her forte.

"A name, or something, would be helpful. I can't just call you Yukishiro." They rolled up to a stoplight and the boy was tapping a finger against the steering wheel as Kaoru continued to engage him using her one-sided conversation. "It just doesn't seem right to me, to leave an introduction half done. I could just give you a nickname, if you like. Maybe Smokey? After all, I spotted you because you were smoking on Kenshin's—"

" _Enishi_." He said with weary finality.

With a curling smile, Kaoru smoothed her sweating palms over the expensive leather seats. She sat a moment in silence and relished the small victory. It was an elegant name, Enishi Yukishiro. The family resemblance he shared with his sister was striking too, from the narrow eyes and long straight nose to the downward tilt of the corners of his mouth. Enishi was as handsome as Tomoe was beautiful, Kaoru noted enviously. All Kaoru had ever managed was something solidly in cute territory.

"Sharing couldn't have hurt as much as you're pretending. If you keep frowning like that you'll look like an old man before you can legally drink." Breaking away from scolding to inserting some excitement in her tone, she pointed off in the distance. "Oh, it's right up there. You can see the sign that says Akabeko right?"

Safety, distance between the younger Yukishiro and Kenshin; the Akabeko was a beacon of hope in her mind. Shivering, she only noticed the window on her side roll up when they were stopped by the last traffic light. Uncertain whether he did it because he noticed Kaoru was cold, or because they were close to the destination, she couldn't help but shoot him a grateful smile from reflex.

If she didn't know better she would swear his eyes darted away from her only when she glanced his way. While he seemed to be passively agreeing to this he struck her as the kind of person who had eddies in every thought current. When was the last time she looked for motivation below the surface in herself or anyone else?

Maybe stranding herself with this boy and inevitably worrying all her friends was more about putting the focus on herself rather than saving Kenshin.

That was a chilly thought.

"We're here." His flat tone startled her but Kaoru tried not to show it.

"I see that."

"… then are you going to get out of the car?"

So it would seem more like she had things under control and not, in actuality, spacing out at the worst possible moment she gave a saccharine smile and said through her teeth, "I wouldn't want you driving off without buying me my fries, how about you get out first."

His eyes narrowed at her, those downcast lips twitching into a full frown. The driver side door slammed with some force behind him, shaking the car. Kaoru took a moment to smooth her fingers down the goosebumps on her arms and take a breath, but before she knew it her door was being opened for her. Clearly annoyed, he still offered his hand to help her out.

Ten minutes ago that hand had been covering her scream, but now her fingertips grazed his callouses and she felt a troubling tremor low in her stomach as their eyes met. Whatever that disturbing feeling was, Kaoru snatching back her hand broke the spell and Enishi strode ahead. Her aching feet clip clopped in her borrowed heels towards the entrance where he was holding the door and giving her a look that all but screamed _hurry up_.

"Thank you." She forced out, determined to stick to the friendly charade.

"Don't mention it." His delivery blurred the line between statement and order.

Tai, the owner, was an old family friend and even odds she was here tonight which was what Kaoru was hoping in her heart. The Akabeko itself was clean and comfortable. Plants were arranged strategically to ensure relative privacy in what anyone else would assume was just a greasy spoon establishment. There were teens in formal wear at various tables, showing Kaoru that she wasn't the only one who had opted out of the dance for whatever reason.

There was a girl in one corner crying her mascara down her face while her friend patted her on the back and looked embarrassed for both of them. A threesome were taking selfies close to the door, clearly more interested in themselves than their surroundings or even the dance itself. Vaping with impunity, despite a strict no smoking policy, Kaoru nervously noted Makoto Shishio and his girlfriend Yumi. They weren't dressed for the dance, and there were papers spread all over the table in front of them so Kaoru hoped he was focused on whatever he was plotting instead of her and her unusual companion. Yumi, absorbed in her phone, seemed bored with the world.

Enishi was marching over towards the section that housed Shishio and Yumi, but Kaoru wanted to be as far away from that snake as possible. With his slicked back black ponytail and poisonous smile. She blessed her stars that he was graduating in a couple months and moving far far away to an out of state college. Two years of his iron rule through student council had been plenty, and Kaoru wished she had never joined it, even as the Secretary.

"Let's sit over this way instead," Kaoru grabbed Enishi's hand and tugged him towards a booth by a window facing the parking lot.

"What is your problem—" His furious scold lost steam when he encountered her frantic pleading puppy eyes. Noting her line of sight it was probably subconscious when Enishi moved himself physically between Kaoru and Shishio's table.

Kaoru led them to the booth, and sat down with a plop on the old vinyl. It wasn't the most comfortable seating, but it provided some shelter from the other customers' gazes. The feeling from earlier persisted even when she dropped his hand and Kaoru concentrated on forgetting that it existed. Desire was inconvenient and unwelcome, and she refused to allow it in without a fight. _Think of Kenshin_ , her mantra rang.

A smiling waitress that Kaoru recognized but wouldn't have been able to name without substantial prompting swept over to their table with menus. Before she could even place them on the tabletop Enishi interrupted her welcome spiel.

"A small fry and two waters. And you can bring the check with the food."

Shrugging off his rudeness, the waitress tried to be chipper in the face of Enishi's clipped words. "They're cutting the fries right now, since we had a bit of a rush earlier. It will be about ten minutes if that's ok."

"It can't be helped then." He stopped there as if that were an answer.

Kaoru tried to salvage the situation a bit. "That will be just fine, thank you." After the woman was out of earshot, Kaoru clicked her tongue at Enishi. "You don't have to be rude to her, she's just doing her job."

"I wasn't rude," Enishi said, clearly tense as he gazed out of the window at his car in its parking space. "I was direct."

"I don't know what things are like for you in whatever military compound you appeared out of, but out here in civilian life we have to show one another a little more gentleness. It keeps the wheels of the world greased." Kaoru watched his profile, noting more details than before, like how his eyebrows were much darker than his hair, and how he seemed to watch the world above his glasses rather than through them. "You secretly did me a favor, by the way. I wanted nothing more than to escape the dance, and suddenly there you were."

Enishi snorted what sounded like a sardonic laugh, tapping his fingers absently against the table in what Kaoru now understood to be an expression of nervous energy.

"No really. I thought I would miss out on something great tonight so I rushed to be included, but I just felt like I was watching everything from outside of my body." Kaoru glanced out at traffic, noting in her peripheral vision he was actually using the reflection in the window to stare at her. Her cheeks colored. "I hadn't felt that way since my mother died."

Jarred from his reverie, Enishi actually turned to face her from across the table. His stiff back bent as he leaned towards her. "My condolences." He meant it, too, because there was more real feeling in that statement than he had shown to her all evening. He must have lost someone important as well.

"It was almost five years ago. Cancer." That was as far as Kaoru could go down that memory pathway before she got lost in the weeds. "I failed all my classes in middle school for ages after that and they put me in the remedial track when I moved to high school."

"People need time to mourn." He said enigmatically, emphatically.

"Try convincing the school district!" Kaoru tried to laugh it off, but securing the coveted permission from her English and History teachers to move into an honors track that would allow her to get college credits had literally taken her two years. The frustration with the process was as fresh as ever.

Enishi looked like he wanted to say more, so Kaoru allowed the silence to stretch even though it killed her inside. She wanted to ask so many questions!

"Why were you afraid of the man in the corner?"

"We're on student council together, and he's just… really manipulative. He always sees the teachers and stuff as enemies—he calls them 'the establishment'—and if you don't agree with his take on something you can find yourself being hounded by his groupies. Our last treasurer practically had a nervous breakdown when he found an error in her accounting." Kaoru felt like she could go on about this, but it wasn't like she had to put up with it for much longer and complaining didn't change anything. "But he'll be headed out of state for college soon and maybe then we can arrange a bake sale or a car wash without a shouting match."

The whole point of this was supposed to be to get him to talk to her, yet here she was blathering on about Shishio. Kaoru sighed, clasping her hands in front of her on the table. A minute or two ticked by in silence; then the water arrived. Furtively, as Enishi focused on the waitress, Kaoru tried to pull up her dress a bit. Way too much skin was exposed by half now that she was outside of the context of the dance itself.

"Himura is as bad as this Shishio guy. You should stay away from him too if you have any sense." Enishi casually took a sip of his water, smiling absently as Kaoru practically inflated with indignation.

"Kenshin is my friend." She shot back without thinking.

Enishi bared his teeth, smiling in a way that made him look like a man on the edge. "You're too good for him and you just don't know it yet. He simpers and flatters, so his machinations aren't obvious like that Shishio guy. But make no mistake, he's just as toxic."

There was a full glass of water and she was feeling hot under the collar, but to her credit she did not throw it in his lying face.

"You just don't like that he's dating your saintly sister!"

"I don't like that he preyed on her at her weakest moment. I need to rescue her from herself!"

At their most perfect moment, full volume and at one another's throats, the waitress plopped the plate of fries in between them and scurried away once more. Enishi looked for the check and, not seeing one, growled and tossed a twenty on the table.

" _Wait_." Kaoru inserted all the steel she had into that word, and Enishi actually paused in the process of getting up to leave. "Eating with me was part of the deal. Are you a man of your word or aren't you?" She knew she had to put aside her anger and keep the younger Yukishiro here if she was going to protect Kenshin.

Cursing shortly in a language she didn't understand, he sat down heavily across from her and glared. It might have been Chinese, but she wasn't sure. Kaoru had taken extra P.E. electives instead of a language, but even then her school didn't offer Chinese. Private schools for the rich were something else.

"It will go faster if you eat too." Kaoru joggled the ketchup bottle, trying to make it release its delicious goo. When it continued to refuse despite all her slapping, Enishi popped a utility knife out of his pocket and snatched the bottle from her. Sticking the knifepoint in the opening broke the seal and the condiment plopped on the plate.

Picking up a fry, she eyed the ketchup on the plate. "How clean is your knife?" she inquired warily.

"How clean is your hand?"

"Touche."

Kaoru hadn't lied about dinner and the fries were disappearing more rapidly than she had counted on. Enishi refused to engage her in any sort of conversation while she whittled away at the golden potatoes, but his attitude turned about completely as a shadow appeared from behind the fern. Turning to see what was going on, Kaoru practically shrank into herself as Shishio smiled in her direction from an arm's length away. The fry in Kaoru's mouth slid uncomfortably down her now thick throat. Yumi, attention still on her phone, stood behind him. No doubt all the yelling earlier had given their position away.

"Dance not to your taste, Kamiya?" They had been on student council together for two years and he had never addressed her by her first name. "I find I'm more interested in the after parties. Headed anywhere interesting with your _friend_?"

His knowing smile as he took in Enishi and Kaoru in what looked very much like a date-ish scenario made her feel tawdry. Everyone knew what happened after events like this, and he probably assumed they were headed to a hotel or something. Yumi was no doubt snapping pictures to laugh at later, or possibly blackmail her somehow. Kaoru's rigid propriety with men was well known if overly exaggerated, and it didn't take much to twist this into a fractured reputation.

While Kaoru was doing everything in her power to seem smaller and more covered, Enishi across from her had shrugged out of his unbuttoned overshirt. Muscles that could only be explained by near constant time spent working out bulged from his arms, and she already knew from earlier his chest was hard as a rock.

"I understand you're on student council together," Enishi started casually, and Kaoru tried not to be fidget nervously as she wondered what he was doing. "I'm sure once you're gone you know that you've passed leadership to capable successors like Kaoru here."

She didn't know how, but Enishi spotted Shishio's sore spot and twisted his ketchup covered knife in it. The boys glared at one another briefly, placidly sizing one another up. Shishio seemed to come to a decision to retreat against the unknown quantity Enishi represented. The vein standing out against the muscles of Enishi's arm might have helped that along.

"Give my regards to your sister, Yukishiro. She might have a distant shot at valedictorian if she catches up to my grades in Advanced Chemistry by some miracle."

"The grades of a Yukishiro don't tend to matter much to college admission boards." Reminding Shishio that he had to work for scholarships and Tomoe didn't need to clearly rubbed salt in yet another open wound Kaoru couldn't have guessed Shishio had.

Kaoru felt like she could actually breathe again only when Shishio had retreated to his own table and sat down. He looked stormy, and come Monday Kaoru was probably in for a world of hurt from just being associated with Enishi, but for now she felt elated.

"I feel like you just fought a demon for me. Thank you."

"Forget it. You have backbone, I've seen it, so you should exercise it when he comes at you over this." She couldn't even get mad about his 'directness' because he was right.

Kaoru sighed. "He doesn't tend to go after the girls, he sicks Yumi on them." Enishi looked at her blankly. "You saw her: long purple hair, red halter top, skinny jeans, married to her phone." He nodded his recognition as she rattled off details. "Boys you can physically fight, when it comes down to it, but girls use much dirtier tactics."

As soon as she could she needed to put together a battle strategy with Megumi. If anyone knew how to think deviously and strategically it would be her. Misao was good if what she needed was a tactic so left field no one would see it coming, but Shishio wasn't easily distracted by gimmicks. He would strike to kill and do it fast.

Kaoru allowed her greasy fingertips to graze over the remaining fries she was no longer hungry for, while Enishi rose and pulled his shirt back on. That was most certainly not a twinge of disappointment, she told herself, as she focused her eyes back on the plate.

"I've been more than fair about this. Uphold your part of the deal."

His eyes lingered on Kaoru, making sure he waited until she met his gaze and nodded. If nothing else they both understood that they were bound by their words and honored their promises. While still alarmed for Kenshin, Kaoru admired that even with how hot his hate burned Enishi managed to show restraint around her.

Enishi only made it a step away before he turned his head and commented in parting, "It wasn't entirely unpleasant."

"Likewise."

The jingling of the bell at the door signaled to Kaoru that her diversion was over. Instead of being motivated to jump up, find a phone, or even run off and alert Tai to her predicament, Kaoru was possessed by malaise. Coming down off the adrenaline rush of being around the younger Yukishiro, she stifled a yawn. When the waitress came by, Kaoru stared at the twenty still on the table as asked for a cup of coffee. She had more than enough, and Enishi wasn't likely to come back looking for change.

The coffee warmed her up, still clad only in her strapless purple chiffon dress. Replaying her encounter over and over again in her mind she tried to find meaning in every glance, every word, and found that she still wasn't really sure if she had dragged Enishi here for Kenshin's sake or her own. More troubling, that warm safe feeling she got when she thought of Kenshin was oddly absent.

If she had kept a diary this would have made a great entry.

The dregs were all that were left in her second cup, as Kaoru decided how much she wanted to finish off the gritty last few sips before she hauled herself out of here and back to school. It would take some time to walk, but it wasn't all that far. Absently, she heard tires screeching outside and assumed some drunk person hadn't noticed a red light or something. Kaoru's dad often had evening patrol and she had heard enough cautionary stories about car accidents and intoxication to last a lifetime.

Bursting through the door with enough force to make the entry bell give an alarming clang, Misao led a charge around the room until she found Kaoru and ambushed her with a hug. Megumi and Sano followed shortly afterwards.

"Oh my GAWD!" Misao squealed before punching Kaoru solidly in the arm. Hugs and violence were pretty typical, but today the violence was pretty darn emphatic. "We have been driving around looking for you when you didn't pick up your phone."

"Disappearing on us is bullshit, and you know it." Megumi supplied, arms folded in front of her in supreme disapproval. She was looking particularly regal in a sapphire gown that made her look like a goddess. An angry goddess. "What's even more bullshit is getting a text like this.."

Shoving her phone in Kaoru's face, Kaoru scrolled down the line of texts from Misao to Megumi:

 _U seen K?_

 _Omg I can't find her_

… _parking lot kids say she left with a boy?!_

 _Omg_

 _Ks dad will kill us_

 _Akiko just fwd me a pic_

 _Is that akabeko?!_

Yumi worked fast it seemed. There, in the chat log, was Kaoru making a face like a whipped dog while Enishi in all his bare armed muscular glory looked like he was about to straight up fist fight the person taking the photo. It didn't look good, in lots of ways, but particularly because Kaoru had tucked her chin down to stare at the table top and she had at least two chins. Mortifying.

"Kenshin is on his way too. He was going to help us look when we initially thought you had just run off somewhere on school grounds to sulk." Megumi was ruthless in her displeasure.

"Why would I run off to sulk," Kaoru didn't like that tone her friend was taking, and was now also worried about if Kenshin had seen the picture yet or not. The last think she needed was him thinking Enishi had kidnapped her or something.

Megumi pointed an accusatory finger at her, and Kaoru wondered if Shishio and Yumi were already enjoying the fruits of their initial campaign. It was no doubt going to get worse on every front after tonight. "I saw the face you made when Tomoe put her head on Kenshin's shoulder. You know what I'm talking about."

"I don't need you to lecture me."

"I think you do after the hell you just put us through because you can't grow up and get over…"

Kenshin wandered into view with a smile. "Kaoru! I'm so relieved!"

Megumi may have been willing to spare Kaoru that line of thought in front of her crush, but she was by no means finished. "And another thing, where is this guy you were with in the photo!?"

"He looked like bad news, kiddo. I know my own kind." Sano chimed in, wanting to back up his girlfriend but not sure he really should bring attention to himself while she was angry just in case.

"I don't know. You should probably ask Tomoe." Kaoru was feeling surly. Everyone had arrived to yell at her. Sure it was out of love and because she had done a shitty thing to them, but it had been a stressful night already and she was done with it all.

Kenshin gave Kaoru a weirdly confused look, but they were all immediately distracted by the distinctive sound of glass shattering. Making goggles against the glass to counteract the glare, Kaoru saw a distinctive shock of white hair. Dread pooled in her gut as she noted the baseball bat in his hands, but there was also relief as she realized she was no longer going to be the focus of everyone's attention.

"Is that your car, Kenshin?" Misao crawled into the booth, her knees making a funny noise as they rubbed against the vinyl. She had opted for a short canary yellow dress as part of her unintentional life goal of being as conspicuous as possible. "That crazy dude just broke one of your headlights."

Kenshin marched straight out the door, followed by the entire group. Kaoru, who suspected she might know what was about to happen, downed the last disgusting sip of coffee to prepare her nerves and ran out behind them.

The confrontation was already in progress.

"…leech on our family. I see you for what you really are."

"Just put the bat down, Enishi. I won't talk to you like this."

Enishi snarled, tossing the bat across a nearby chain link fence into some bushes. Everyone flinched except Sano and Kenshin. "I didn't come here to talk at all." Yukishiro's boot crushed the broken glass from the headlight into the asphalt as he raised his fists. "I came here to beat you until you can't move."

"Tomoe doesn't want this." Kenshin said, still trying to sound reasonable.

"You don't fucking know what she wants. You swept in like a disease while she was mourning Akira."

Normally cool under every kind of pressure, Kenshin actually looked angry for once. "You don't understand what you're talking about. You've been away for too long."

"It had always been them. And Akira was like a brother to me." Enishi fell into reverie a moment, but snapped back angrier than before. "A month after they sent his body home, you were attached to her side like a parasite. I saw you there with her at the memorial…"

Kenshin and Enishi had begun to circle one another, and Kaoru wondered how long they had before they were noticed and someone called the cops. What would be the odds that her dad would be the responding officer? With her luck, 100% that would then result in weeks of house arrest for even being associated with a parking lot brawl.

"What's your part in this?" Megumi sidled up to Kaoru and whispered loudly at her.

"I tried to distract him and keep him away from Kenshin." They watched he boys stalk one another in the parking lot, while Enishi continued to throw accusations at Kenshin. Kenshin was getting more and more upset, and it looked like Enishi was going to get his fight. "Obviously, it didn't work."

"This is fucked up, should I do something?" Sano looked to Megumi, always the font of wisdom. She shook her head at him, and he shrugged his acceptance of her verdict.

Misao, not knowing what else to do, had started recording with her phone. Even Kaoru thought that was a little tacky so she didn't point out she was holding her phone vertically still. They would have words later about how this cold be considered evidence, but she doubted she'd get Misao to delete it before she showed Aoshi. Misao had no filter and no sense of self-preservation when it came to trying to impress that guy.

Mid taunt, Enishi lunged and connected solidly with Kenshin's jaw. If Kenshin had been as weak as Enishi had assumed that would have been enough to knock him out, but Kenshin disengaged and spat out blood from his split lip before charging and knocking Enishi down. They landed hard on the glass with a crunch, and Enishi just barely missed getting brained by Kenshin's car bumper.

Kaoru held her breath as they rolled around, legs locked together while Enishi peppered Kenshin with body shots on his back and side. Truly she wasn't rooting for anyone, as blood streaked out in dark spots on the blacktop. There was nothing noble about this brawl, just raw fury on both sides.

Somehow Kenshin maneuvered himself into a position behind Enishi, and locked an arm in around his neck. She saw him say something, but the gurgled curse words coming from Enishi were blocking anyone's ability to understand either of them. Enishi gave a few jerks before his eyes rolled up and he went limp. Kenshin had a weird light in his eye and Kaoru was afraid he wasn't going to let go, but Sano's shout to drop the choke brought everyone back to earth.

"Shit, man, I didn't think all that jiujitsu would pay off." Trust Sano to say something totally inappropriate.

Kaoru gestured to Misao to stop filming, and her friend rolled her eyes but complied. Megumi, ever the amateur medic, came over to see how Kenshin was. Loudly, she commented on how he had ground glass into his back that needed to be picked out and that he'd probably need stitches for the gash on his eyebrow. Following her first instinct, Kaoru ran over to Enishi.

He was still breathing, thank everything. Seeing a glint near Kenshin's left front tire, she picked up Enishi's glasses and hooked them in her sweetheart neckline before plopping down on the ground next to him. His breathing was so shallow, and she wondered how long she would be waiting for him to wake up.

"How's the other one doing?" Megumi called over. "Me and Sano are going to get Kenshin to the ER so he can get sewn up. You and Misao got this?"

"Yeah, be careful." Kaoru watched Sano help Kenshin limp off to the car before she turned her face up to Misao who was so full of nervous energy she was dancing from foot to foot. "Go ask for some ice inside. And a glass of water."

Too happy to have a concrete task, Misao ran into the Akabeko.

At some point, while checking cautiously for injuries, Kaoru found her fingers running through Enishi's thick hair. It was soothing, and she realized that she wished she could wrap her arms around this broken man and protect him from Kenshin. She would have bet every dime in her meager college savings account even two hours ago that there would never have come a day that she felt anything less than total devotion to Kenshin. Kaoru's internal world shifted a little.

"Are my glasses broken?"

Lost in thought, she hadn't seen Enishi open his eyes. "One lens is cracked across."

"Figures." Groaning, he sat up and scooted over to prop himself against his BMW a few feet away. "Why are you here?"

Right to the point. She supposed if she were him she wouldn't want to ruminate too much on losing her big fight against her greatest foe either just now.

"I want to be here. With you."

"I don't need your pity."

Kaoru huffed an incredulous laugh, and squatted down next to him. Carefully, she put his glasses back on his face while he winced. "This isn't pity. This is… friendship."

"We're friends now, are we?" Enishi's question hung in the air, and Kaoru didn't think it even warranted an answer. Truthfully, she didn't really have an answer. Instead she sat down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she allowed that fluttering feeling in her stomach to blossom.

Feeling his hand cover hers gently, she sighed. She was always a sucker for a wounded soul.


End file.
